Black Beauty is one of the most widely read of all children's books today, and has been continuously in print since its publication in Victorian England in 1877.

But in the horse-drawn mid-Victorian era, the book was written as a social, moral and humane tract, and not as a children's story. Its clear purpose was to improve the lot of the working horse, and in tracing Black Beauty's life from its beginnings in comfortable circumstances through its decline down the social scale, horses and their grooms and owners from all walks of life are examined. In this way the author speaks out against ill-treatment, whether from ignorance or cruelty, or whether caused by the dictates of fashion in wealthy households or by the pressure of circumstances where the horse was the poor man's means of subsistence. 

From the dust jacket of Black Beauty the annotated edition published by J. A. Allen and Comapny Ltd, 1989